Unity Ship (Ship)
Description The Unity Ships are the creation of the deep-space dwelling K'r'r'r. Their ships are great catamarans with three outer decks, and three huge outriggers. Each deck carries a medium ballista at the bow. The gravity plane runs along the length of the ship, but the catamarans provide three downward directions, resulting in a very unusual gravity configuration. Each Unity Ship has three 'up' directions, and three 'down' directions, and is constructed of three different hulls attached together in a triangular arrangement. This design is bizarre to other races. Unity Ships are identical and modular, such that they can link together at the catamarans to form a large ship (all ships occupy the same hex regardless of the eventual size). The binding is a maneuver practiced by the crews until it is second nature to them. Two Unity Ships need only move into the same hex and have crews and helmsmen willing to perform the maneuver in order to link up. The K'r'r'r helmsmen have their minds melded at the time of the linkage, such that the ship has the SR of the slowest member of the meld. Linked Unity Ships cannot achieve spelljamming speeds, but can maneuver at tactical speeds. If 1-3 Unity Ships are linked, there is no penalty to the maneuverability class, but for every 3 ships (or portion thereof) linked together after the first 3, the maneuverability class drops by one. This places the practical maximum for linked Unity Ships at 12, since if any more ships are added the maneuverability class would drop to G, indicating an uncontrolled drifting. Unity Ships which are linked have combined hull points and air envelopes (any damage taken by the unity is equally distributed between the vessels that compose it), however a critical hit affects only one ship in the unity, so any vessel that has its helmsman incapacitated can drop out of the formation. When ramming, the Unity Ships in a linked formation gain +1 to hit for every 2 ships in the unity. For the actual ram attack, however, only a single ship is used, which will drop out of the unity at the last moment (the magical link that keeps the ships together is not strong enough to hold together under the stresses of a ram - similarly if the unity is rammed by an enemy ship, only one Unity Ship will be affected, and it will be knocked out of the formation). Each linked Unity Ship retains its own unusual gravity configuration. The linkage between Unity Ships is possible due to the properties of the K'r'r'r helm, which appears as an ivory staff bound in gold, and which functions as a minor helm in all other respects. Other races can use a K'r'r'r helm (indeed, due to their attractive appearance and the fact that the helmsman can freely move about the ship while using the helm, a K'r'r'r helm usually fetches a significantly higher price on the open market than a minor helm), however they lack the correct mental architecture to unite ships into a unity. Even K'r'r'r helmsmen using K'r'r'r helms can only perform this linkage if the ships used are Unity Ships, and if the crews of those ships are made up entirely of K'r'r'r. Crew The K'r'r'r who crew the Unity Ships are fanatical warriors when led by a war master, who serves as both captain and leader of any assaults. A Unity Ship will typically have two helmsmen; specialized priests with limited access to spells (all, guardian, protection, sun spheres). In addition to these officers and the crew required to maneuver the ship, each Unity Ship typically has a complement of a dozen K'r'r'r warriors who man the ballistas and serve as boarding parties. Ship Uses Colonization: Unity Ships have only one purpose: to go out and seize new lands for their empire. The K'r'r'r have a preference for gas worlds, dwarven citadels, and asteroid bases, but any spacial body up to size A is a potential target. Only groundlings are completely safe from K'r'r'r colonization fleets, since the spider-like creatures shun large worlds. Any target of a K'r'r'r unity fleet must be cleansed of non-K'r'r'r life, after which the new owners can settle down to establish their colony and begin building more Unity Ships. The individual vessels of a fleet are launched in a straight line, far enough apart to allow them to go to spelljamming speeds. When a unity fleet is encountered, a new Unity Ship appears each round, from the same direction, and on the same vector as the previous ship, until the entire fleet is assembled. There are usually 4-24 ships in a K'r'r'r fleet. If more than 12 ships are encountered, they will form two seperate unities; each with roughly equal numbers of ships. The best tactic for surviving a K'r'r'r attack is to hit them hard as they slow to tactical speed, before they can unite. A linked unity forms a mobile fortress that can easily knock most other ships out of the stars, yet individual ships are far less powerful and more vulnerable to attack. Once the unity has been formed, the best tactic is usually to ram it in order to knock individual ships out of formation, however this is dangerous, since few ships attacking an assembled unity survive long enough to successfully ram it. Other Configurations The K'r'r'r intentionally keep all of their Unity Ships identical, since otherwise they would be unable to link. Since the ships are virtually never used by other races, no other configurations are found.